I find that the Warhammer Rulebook descriptions are not a good representation of how spells work in DO. Here are my thoughts on some examples, as well as their game effectiveness:

1. Doombolt is one of the most interesting spells in the game. It is a guaranteed kill against most targets - even a BG knight. It will only kill a single target at a time, and so it does not do area damage. The fact that it does heavy damage is evidenced by being powerful enough to set small buildings alight with one cast. (In the Sylvania level with the Vampire Lord, most buildings are set alight with between one and three doombolts, whereas it takes about seven fireballs). However, it has almost no effect on the mummies on the final stage. Twenty doombolts did not kill a single mummy! This implies that there is some way in which the effects of the spell can be resisted and negated by a tough target. In the old Warhammer rules, Doombolt was a power two spell that did D6 S5 hits (against buildings and warmachines it was D6 S10). A mummy was T5 W4 so twenty dommbolts would have caused 20-120 S5 hits, which have a 50% chance of causing a wound each. The D6 factor also means that multiple targets could be slain.

2. Gaze of Nagash. I find this to be more powerful than Blast or Gaze of Mork. A single cast can kill a treeman or a steamtank. I have had instances where it has passed through three dispel magics and slain my bright mage. It is also very effective against mummies. In the old Warhammer, it did 2D6 S4 hits with no armour saves. This would not be sufficient for it to kill a T7 W6 treeman (a S4 hit has a 1/6 chance of wounding a T7 target) for example.

3. Arnizipal's Black Horror. One of the worst spells in the game imho. It has the same property as the Wind of Cold in being able to travel indefinitely, but its damage output is very poor, sometime zero, and is of course a power three spell. In Warhammer, it was a power three spell that used a 3 inch diameter circular template which travelled 4D6 forwards from the caster each turn. Everything it moved over had to pass a Strength test on a D6 or be slain. For typical infantry, a clean pass over a block of S3 would cause 50% casualties; 33% for S4 etc. It does not do anything like this in the game!

4. Fists of Gork. The D6 S6 hits in the Warhammer description is nothing special (how many times can you roll a '6' to get an extra D6 S6? an average is about three kills), but in DO it is absolutely devastating. One of the best ways to take out the BG in multiplayer!

5. Ice Shards. This spell takes some practice to aim so that all the shards hit the target regiment. It does very good damage against weak targets, such as skeletons, but this is offset by its short range. One of its most interesting properties is that each ice shard is treated as if it were an individual spell. This means that three ice shards hitting an enemy mage will remove all three dispel magics, and if more hit after that, then damage will be done. Further, you can exploit this property to target one of your own units with the Spelleater Shield. A single cast should be enough to fill your entire magic pool as each shard gets absorbed and coverted into a magic point!!! But beware, as the Spelleater Shield is not foolproof, and you may end up killing your own troops. This trick can be useful to use on the last level, where you can devastate the Dread King's army (and the Dread King himself, though to speed things up it is best to get him to put the dispel on an undead unit so you can attack him unhampered) with your Ice Mage by repeatedly casting Wind of Cold, which will travel indefinitely and beyond the furthest point that you can aim with the spell. This can be a slow process as even with the Wand of Jet, you will have to wait for your magic pool to refill, which is where the Ice Shards technique comes in. Eventually however, the Spelleater Shield will fail enough times that the entire unit will be slain by Ice Shards

Thanks Blue Lobster the stuff you've come up with is quite interesting, especially Ice shards info which im going to try and incorperate into my mod.

1. Doom bolt, the only mechanic i can think of that would produce this result is if Doom bolts give multiple str 1 hits, as tou 5 is imune to str 1 hit, yet if there was multiple hits its highly likely to kill a tou 3 creature even one with multiple wounds like the BGK. Be warey though results can be knocked off by Regiment leaders. Regiment leaders are immune too all damage in DO until all the rest of the squad dies, any hits on them are NOT TRANSFERED and hence wasted. If you bolt hits them its wasted.

2. Any spell can punch through 3 dispels its just not likely, beams especially are good at punching though for some reason. I agree that Gase seems very strong though.

3. Arnizipal's, I suspect this spell is simply broke. I've seen it perform well once when it wiped out an entire skeleton archer regiment (and I mean completely 16 -> 0) though i suspect instability helped. Still I was like WTF. TBH I doubt i'd use this spell if it cost 1MP.

4. Fists, Ya sometimes this spell seems to go on and on. It seem to me watching it as 3 fists are produced and they go on an on and on until the fists lose power/are defeated?!?! This spell is insanely good

5. Good catch on the spell eater, i knew about the multiple shards - i didnt know about the spell generation.

Logged

Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay: The worst is death, and death will have his day.

[23:04:33] <*Ghabry> The internal design of Darkmancer is just strange

To the people who replied to me on Page 1, just wanted to say thank you - Sadly I play a hefty tonne of other games, most competatively and my time with Dark Omen is purely for Singleplayer Love and Nostalgia, don't think I'd have the time for any actual tournaments but I do intend to stick around and see if I can contribute to the community

Re doombolt test: I cast doombolt with the dread king through the control enemy regiments cheat at an oblique angle to the two bodyguard regiments of mummies so that it was hitting the unit from the back. twenty doombolts and no kills. however, when my vampire lord cast doombolt in close combat, it would usually take about three-four doombolts to kill a mummy. i have no idea why this is: is the spell stronger at closer range? the str 1 idea is interesting but it seems that mummies are vulnerable to them. it is quite clear that Gaze is much better at taking out mummies, treemen, and steam tanks though. In any case, doombolt is far superior to fireball and brain bursta in almost all cases.

It seems that the Spelleater shield is more reliable on the PC version. I've only just started playing the PC version in the last month and the shield is a lor better than it was in the PS version, making the ice shards strategy more viable. (For those who have not played it, the PS version is easier and not really worth playing, although there are some odd quirks eg the dread king's death has a heart of woe quality to it!)

Very interesting about skeletons and arnizipals. But is their instability not limited to taking additional damage from losing combat?

It's not even about losing in combat - They are flagged to take 'additional wounds' which I presume goes for all attacks, even spells, which are surely one of the most damaging methods of wounding. We all know how easy it is to annihilate Skeletons with ranged attacks (Spells especially) and yet the regular units take more of a beating.

Being useful by themselves, these spells partially solve one of the main problems during a Default Compaign:

Limited amount of overall exps your armies earn. Yes, this is a "munchkin" approach, but I always try to prepare the more armies of level 3 (or even 4) before last missions. it's problematic cause I can't kill more than computer gives me

However, Wizards earn a lot of exp if enemies die from Bowmen/Artillery/Melee units while under Snow Blizzard and Crimson Bands, so wizard only needs level 2 + Book of Ashur, and then he easily earns level 3-4 w/o killing a single goblin :p

The wizard gets exp for kills while an enemy is blocked with crimson bands or snow blizzard? That's a really interesting find. So you basicly get twice the exp because the unit that really killed the enemy gets the same exp?

well.. that is usefull for the campaign... but i would be nice a kind of endurance, saving the armies after each battle, until you have nothing to use, and you loose as other stills alive fighting in a row of endurance, saving armies, earning exp and getting stronger, trying to be as full as posible. i always wanted that a saving-after-battle endurance

Resuming spells experience topic,Hawks of Miska give the Ice Mage exp as well. Mine earned a little exp in a mission where he didn't kill a single enemy.

But the amount of exp was miserable, like 20 or something. Probably this works only when enemy under the Hawks is retreating and you are trampling it with your regiments. I will try to pay more attention to it next time I play an ice mage.

Flaming head must be one of the best spells in the game, if not THE best.By aiming it yourself instead of clicking the banner you can decimate an entire regiment. Especially with a flanking attack. The best hits are when you kill so many that the regiment re-arranges and the troops are basicly throwing themselves underneath the slow-moving Head. Whenever I throw a Flaming Head there's about 50% chance a regiment is about to shit their pants and flee.

I have different experiences with Meteor. Often it deals less than 3 kills. While it does force a few fear-checks I have much better experience with a single Flaming Head. It's also not very accurate, often missing my intended target by a Regiment's width.

Does Ere-we-go give some initiative and armour bonus as well? I always found that Regiments with Ere-we-go survived longer and had waaaaaaay less casualties even when engaged with two regiments. In fact, I use it on my Mages all the time to help them survive battles and gain XP faster since their attack spells suck. Could it be that the extra strength with possible extra initiative helps them kill units before they ever deal damage?